Pick your poison. I had a Harriet the Spy vs. Alexander weekend. I don’t know if you are familiar with either, but Harriet the Spy was one of my favorite books when I was little. I think they later made it into a movie with Michelle Trachtenberg. Regardless, the book was all about a little rich girl who wanted to be a spy. She carried a journal around with her everywhere she went and she wrote down her observations about people. The observations were… not so nice. That would have been just fine except one day, Harriet left her journal out on a bench. Some kids from school found it and they read it out loud. Everyone hated Harriet for a really long time after that.

I have had a somewhat similar experience earlier in my life. I was sort of an awkward kid. The summer after sixth grade a good friend and I went to summer camp. I had zero to nil experience with boys but there was a boy in our “co-cabin” who I thought was the greatest thing since sliced bread. We’ll call him… Jay. Jay was a year older and had the bluest eyes and the best hair of anyone at camp. I was completely smitten. Of course, so were about six of my fellow campers. I always fancied myself to be something of a writer so I had a little journal where I wrote things. I also had a big sister who I wanted desperately to like me so I thought I’d combine the two ideals and would write letters to her about some “ideal” life that I could be living at camp. I don’t think I had any intention of ever mailing the letters, God knows they were complete fantasy, but they made me happy to write. Mid week I went to take a shower and mid-way through my counselor came into the bathroom and spoke to me through the stall. It appeared that my good friend had decided to pull out my journal and gather a group of people, including Jay, to read all my fantasy letters to. I never wanted to leave that shower. I remember sitting there and crying until I thought I’d drown in my own tears. It was the worst feeling ever to know that your private thoughts, your private ideas about someone were revealed to them and not in a way you would prefer. The worst part? The counselors gathered everyone BACK together and forced my friend to publicly apologize to me. I don’t know what was worse. The good news? Jay was a super nice guy who went out of his way to try and make me feel better about the whole situation. Not that I wanted anything to do with him after that.

So that brings me to this weekend. I had a similar, though slightly less public humiliation. This blog was always meant to be a place where I could be real. I could vent or sigh or be happy and not have to censor myself. I should have known better than that. Because when you don’t censor yourself, you run into situations where you say something in a blog that you don’t really mean on a global scale, but that you say when you’re frustrated or tired or unhappy. When I don’t censor, I say things that I might mean for five seconds and not mean five seconds after that. This weekend, that lack of censorship caused a rift between my mother-in-law and I that is going to take a long time to repair.

And the worst thing is? I really do love my mother-in-law. I mean, sure there are going to be times when two women in a house leads to strife. But on the whole, she is a wonderful person to be around and she loves our little family so much. So it was horrible…and I mean HORRIBLE when I realized she had read an entry from my blog and had taken it to heart. We’re talking sinking feeling in the stomach, depths of despair horrible. I’ve never wanted to crawl into a hole so bad in my life. I mean, with Jay, the things that were read were embarrassing. They were my innermost thoughts about what I wished could happen and how I saw a cute boy. This was beyond embarrassing. This was horrifying.

So that leads me beyond young Harriet and into young Alexander. Another favorite book, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. That is my today. It was my yesterday and my Saturday as well. It’s going to take a while to shake this weekend out of my system. And you can bet your ass this Blog will now be censored. Not for content, but for emotional outbursts. I have no business using a public blog to voice private thoughts that will appear and disappear as quickly as the crazy Macon snow we had this weekend.

Enough of that. I hope you all had a wonderful Valentine’s Day. Husband and I went to our favorite Indian restaurant. We normally get carry out because of the bambino, but we ate at the restaurant on Sunday because the in-laws were in town to care for young J.

Oh. My. God.

Have I mentioned that I’m a vegetarian but Husband is most definitely not? Have I mentioned that we both adore Indian food with a capital A-D-O-R-E? Well Sunday we found our Mecca. Seriously. The restaurant has a BUFFET! And it was half vegetarian and half not. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. So if you’re ever in the Macon, GA area between 11-3 Tuesday through Sunday, go to Taj and indulge in something sacred.

Comments

7 Responses to “Harriet and Alexander”

Lydia B. February 15th, 2010 @ 3:23 pm

Omigosh. I totally know how you must feel. We decided in-laws were a taboo topic for MommyLand because of that exact same issue. Which is a shame – because it's part of the gig but can just be too, too hurtful. Sigh… We think you're awesome. Don't be too hard on yourself!

Cyndi @ 6 Ring Circus February 15th, 2010 @ 5:17 pm

OMG I developed a sympathetic stomach ache for you just reading this post. I'm so sorry that happened! I've had to censor myself as well. My parents are super crazy sometimes and I could write an entire blog just on the weird stuff they say and do if I wasn't sure that – even though they are both computer illiterate – they would track it down SOMEHOW. Was your hubby mad at you?

Jayme February 15th, 2010 @ 5:30 pm

Oh no! I would be mortified.

Cybil February 15th, 2010 @ 6:12 pm

Oh dear – my heart goes out to you! I am so sorry this happened! Maybe I better cross my out-laws off of my topic list.

Law Momma February 15th, 2010 @ 6:15 pm

Thanks all for the kind words! Cyndi, Husband was upset at the situation, but luckily not too much at me. And hopefully MIL and I will get through this relatively unscathed. Time will tell.

notmommyoftheyear February 16th, 2010 @ 2:11 am

Hi! That totally sucks and is part of the reason I have two blogs. One that MIL knows about and has a password to and one that she does not. Even still I try not to write about her on the off chance that she'd find it. But damn, sometimes I wish I could because it would just feel so good to get it all out. We should set something up where we can vent about in laws on someone elses blog! haha!!

Shell February 16th, 2010 @ 9:50 am

Hey there- I left something for you on my blog. 🙂Shell @ Not Quite Susie Homemaker